Poem of the Week, week 25: Henrik Wergeland "With a Bouquet"
Enjoy a weekly poem by authors from Norway, throughout the year.
WITH A BOUQUET
He has no soul who won’t believe
that Nature is an open book,
that moss’s pallid rock-flowers have,
like roses, voice as well as look.
My love, you know this as of old.
The bell-flowers dreams to you disclose.
You know the lily’s silent soul,
the words soft-spoken by the rose.
Let then your fantasy now seek
midst summer flowers to roam so free!
And flowers, for her I charge you speak!
For such a lovely flower is she.
On hills where dawn’s flush casts its spell
there grow but roses like her cheek,
on peaks of light, where angels dwell,
but lilies pure as she is meek.
And only there where blue of day
like spring so clear does now arise,
grow violets in blue array
as lovely as her pair of eyes
Translated by John Irons on johnirons.blogspot.com
See the poem in Norwegian
Poem of the Week
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